


The Maverick Hunters of Ga'Hoole

by bellygunnr



Series: reploid owls [1]
Category: Guardians of Ga'hoole - Kathryn Lasky, Rockman X | Mega Man X, Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Everyone is an owl, F/F, F/M, Fire, Gen, Guardians of Ga'Hoole Lore, M/M, Multi, Owls, Pirates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-17 08:53:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16513181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellygunnr/pseuds/bellygunnr
Summary: He's a simple Spotted Owl uprooted by a forest fire. Yet he is so much more.





	The Maverick Hunters of Ga'Hoole

_X was mesmerized out on the edge of his perch, dark eyes peering blankly into the chaotic snapping of the fire. Dark clouds roiled above him, hiding the stars, casting down rain and lightning alike. His talons shook as thunder rumbled the sky and earth. The fire crawled rapidly along the forest floor, swallowing up young trees and overtaking ancient trunks. It had come so close that X could feel the hot currents bathing his face, yet he was not urged to fly. Through the roar, however, he began to hear the beat-beat of wings._

_He cocked his head to the side without thinking. The beat-beat grew louder, more urgent. The fire grew small, unimportant. A shadow shot through the orange light-- and into X's face! Some great dark face, beak hung open, screeching--_

_"X! Wake up! Wake up, X!"_

 

X jerked awake, dark eyes blinking rapidly against the light streaming into his hollow. Another owl was there already, wings slapping at his head, hooting with alarm. It took him a long moment to react.

"I'm up! I'm up! Please stop hitting me," X hooted. He flared his wings against the onslaught, showing off his many spots.

"Oh, thank Glaux for that! X, you were screeching so loudly the whole of Ambala was surely woken up!" The other owl- a Pygmy Owl- retreated, yellow eyes wide. "Scared me half to death, at least, yelling about fires..."

Fire? X blinked slowly at the Pygmy, who was named Hortense. He struggled to recall what he could have been dreaming about. "I don't know," he said finally. "I didn't know I was dreaming!"  
Hortense regarded him with a sharp eye, feathers ruffled. "You do that a lot, X... Always dreaming, never remembering!"

"Well, I can't control it..." X huffed. He omitted that occasionally, his forgotten dreams did come back to him-- while they were unraveling before him! It was a phenomenon certain owls experienced, though he was reluctant to believe he was one such bird. "I'm sorry I woke you, Hortense. Why don't you sleep here until tween time? I'll hunt," X said.

Tween time was the owl word for the twilight between dusk and night, where time seemed to slow and everything became gray. Before it was first lavender, true dusk, and then first black. First black was when the entire owl kingdom came alive to soar beneath the stars.

"Well, if you insist..." Hortense hooted.

And so the two owls settled beside each other to sleep out the rest out of the day.

 

First black came much faster than X would have liked. He awoke to Hortense hooting at him, butting him with the rounded edges of his talons. "You said you'd hunt!"

"I will! I will!" X cried. He lifted himself out of his nest, narrowly avoiding another butt from those talons. "Don't get your gizzard in a twist," he said. He peered out of his hollow where the moon hung in the sky, a thin claw. "Good night for hunting..."

Hortense nodded, hopping beside him. "Isn't it? It'll be a new moon by tomorrow, I bet."

The moon, as owls said, was dwenking. It was waning, shrinking, vanishing into the darkness so that it could grow anew. X liked to watch the moon as it passed through its many phases. Yet as beautiful as it was, he knew it could be dangerous.

Hortense fluttered out of his hollow first, wings spread as wide as a Pygmy's could be. Neatly, the little owl began to descend down the length of the great sycamore X lived in, to where their own hollow was situated. X sighed and took off after them, opening his wings to embrace the cool night sky.

The summer had been good to the Kingdom of Ambala that year, so X was not worried about his hunting. He soared and weaved through the many trees, dark eyes seeking a perch to land on, ears straining for the slightest heartbeats. He found the perch first.

Silence blanketed the forest-- thick, heavy, unbroken by the activity of other owls. X thought this was strange. It was a prime night for flying, yet no one stirred except himself. It was so still that even the wind had died.

The wind died?

Curious! He tilted his head up to peer into the sky, to gaze at the spangled stars-- and there were none! Deep, dark clouds had begun to roll out from the east, the masses tumbling over each other like huge beasts. Pulses of light flickered from within, and thunder rumbled in the distance. Storm clouds!

X took off immediately, though he doubted he could outrun it. Without any wind, he flew under his own power, far less swiftly than he'd like. The air shook as thunder rolled. X's gizzard clenched as he felt the storm blow ever closer, threatening to engulf the entirety of Ambala. As he neared his tree- his and Hortense's home- the skin beneath the feathers began to buzz.

"Hortense!" X screeched. "Hortense! Hortense!"

Thunder boomed. A great blast of wind suddenly caught X in the wings and he tumbled backwards.

He had never been a strong flier-- and now he wasn't even flying! The gust had sent him hurling into the ground, leaving him dazed. It took him a long moment to find his talons.

By the time he had, the forest had shattered. Rain lashed the ground violently at a slant, driven by the powerful wind. X's skin was still abuzz with some otherworldly energy-- it was unlike anything he had ever felt before! He forced himself to waddle forward through the gale. Flying was out of the question-- he wasn't strong enough to combat these headwinds. Yet he had to continue forward.

"Hortense!" X screamed.

X hopped to the base of what he hoped was his tree, screeching and flaring his wings. A head peeked out- the familiar silhouette of his friend! Relieved, he began to claw his way up, forcing himself into the air.

"X! Oh, I'm so glad you're here! Get in...!" Hortense hooted. They reached out with his tiny taloned foot to haul X the rest of the way in. "Are you okay?"

"I hit my head on the way here, but I think I'm alright..." X puffed. He fell into a damp heap on the hollow floor, panting. It was a quaint home that Hortense had made here. X scolded himself for not visiting more often. "Oh, I was really worried about you!"

"Worried about me?! X, I swear," the Pygmy sighed. They pulled X deeper into the hollow. "Something feels weird," he said idly.

X knew what they meant. The buzzing had crawled from his bare skin to his very feathers, like so many mites. His gizzard clenched as the air parted- not inside the hollow, but high above them.

KRA-KOOM!

The furious black storm outside turned orange with fire.

  
The Guardians of Ga'Hoole were a once-mystical union of owls, known only by legend and myth. It was not until the Guardians had come forward to destroy dire threats did they become truth. The defeat of St. Aggies-- a terrible organization of owls bent on ruling the world through brain washing and flecks-- did the first whispers of the Guardians began anew. And when they clashed against the Pure Ones, owls truly thought of the Great Tree of Ga'Hoole as a real place. Yet they remained entrenched in fog and myth.

"Zero! There's an emergency-- a forest fire has started in Ambala!"

Zero jerked his head up, talons hovering above the charts he had been so delicately observing. "Ambala? You can't be serious!"

"Oh, I am!" The owl-- a Whiskered Screech by the name of Hondur-- cried. "How are things here?"

"The situation is under control. Nembur and his company have already left to the Great Tree, owlets in tow. If only you had gotten here sooner!" Zero cursed. He rolled the papers up with a deft stroke of his talon. "How does the fire look?"

"It's spreading quickly, sir," Hondur said. "Yet the forest is green, so perhaps..."

Zero nodded. "I will bring my company to respond. Send a messenger to the Tree!" In the loud, stuttering hoot of a Great Horned, he rallied his company together.

It was no secret that the Guardians operated through groups called 'chaws.' They were specialized teams that allowed an owl to excel in what they had an affinity for-- be it navigation, colliering, weather interpretation, or search and rescue. Zero himself had become a prominent member of the Search & Rescue chaw and was incredible at what he did.

The world outside was frightful, the maverick storm raging over a wide expanse of land. It assaulted Zero and his company through the Forest Kingdom of Tyto right into Ambala, where the fire resembled hell on earth. He dove for the flames.

"Search for grounded owls!" Zero ordered.

  
X's tree was on fire. It was on fire and so was the rest of his home, yet he was too frightened to brave it. Hortense cowered beneath his wing, yellow eyes squeezed shut in fear. They emitted soft peeping noises underneath their beak.

"I think we have to get out of here, fast," X said anxiously. "It's going to be hard..."

"Oh, what does it matter?" Hortense cried. "We're just going to be smoked whether we stay or go!"

X shook his head, feathers ruffling. "No! No, we can't think like that! We must escape!" He swept his wing toward the mouth of the hollow. "Out and up! I believe we can do it!"

Hortense shook their head. "But X! What if we get fire blinked?"

Fire blinking was one of the most terrible tricks a fire could pull. The beauty of the dancing flames, their alluring patterns, could bewitch an owl and cause them to go yeep-- rendering them unable to fly mid-air. It made X's gizzard quake.

"No! We won't be!" X said adamantly.

Hot air suddenly flooded the hollow. The two owls swung their heads around, gasping silently as a fallen branch thumped just outside. It sizzled and popped threateningly, nearly trapping them inside.

"We will not die!" X screeched. He shot into the narrow opening left by the branch, talons scrambling to throw himself into the air.

And what could Hortense do but follow their dear friend? Small though they were, they would be remiss to abandon his charge here. With a steeling of his gizzard- that precious second stomach, pseudo-heart owls prized so- he cast himself into the roiling night.


End file.
